Phillies clobber Rays 10-2, can win World Series tonight

Julie Jacobson/Associated PressPhiladelphia Phillies reliever J.C. Romero reacts after the final out in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the baseball World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays in Philadelphia Sunday.

PHILADELPHIA--For three games, it was a close, tense, could-go-either-way World Series. But in Game 4, the Phillies blew it open. And tonight, with their ace starting pitcher on the mound, they have a chance to put it away.

A 10-2 victory over the Rays on Sunday night at Citizens Bank Park moved the Phillies within one win of the first pro sports title in this city since the 1983 76ers won the NBA title. Cole Hamels, who has won all four of his starts this postseason, will pitch for them tonight. If he can take it to 5-0, there will be champagne, and celebration, and no Game 6 or 7 in Tampa Bay.

It's so close they can just about taste it.

"I tell them the same thing I've been telling them for seven months," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said after the game. "We've got a game tomorrow. We played today to win the game. We did. We've got a game tomorrow. We're going to play that game to win."

Simple is where the Phillies want this right now, and Manuel's task is to make sure they don't get too gleeful about where they are. He'd like them to come out tonight looking just like they did Sunday night, when they hit four home runs, piled on and pulled away behing the sterling pitching (and hitting!) of their No. 4 starter, Joe Blanton.

"The offense, it seems like every time I go out and pitch, they're giving me a run early," Blanton said. "And when you get hitting like that and know they're going to produce, it makes you a little more comfortable."

The Phillies got a gift run in the first inning when Jimmy Rollins was incorrectly ruled safe on a play at third base and later scored on a bases-loaded walk. They got one more in the third and three in the fourth, all with the help of errors by Tampa Bay second baseman Aki Iwamura. And after the Rays cut it to 5-2 in the top of the fifth, Blanton himself stepped up in the bottom of the fifth and slammed the first home run of his professional career - a thunderous high line drive into the seats in left field to make it 6-2 Phillies.

"I just close my eyes and swing hard in case I make contact," Blanton said.

"He said he got mad because I kept giving him the 'take' sign," Manuel said.

Oh, it's a happy bunch of Phillies right now. They were celebrating not only Blanton's homer but his six strong innings that kept the Rays in their World Series slump. They were celebrating the fact that their big guy, Ryan Howard, hit two homers and now has three in the past two games after not hitting one in the first 11 postseason games he played. And they were celebrating where they are right now in the World Series while at the same time trying not to celebrate too much.

"Right now, this is where we want to be - up three games to one at home, got a chance to try and close it out here in Philadelphia," Howard said. "We enjoy it right now, but we have to come out re-focused and ready to go."

The Rays probably needed to go out and get drunk. This looks nothing like the plucky, hard-hitting team that took out the defending World Series champion Red Sox in the ALCS. They made two more errors Sunday, running their total to five for the Series. Rookie third baseman Evan Longoria went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, dropping him to 0-for-16 with nine strikeouts for the Series. Carlos Pena was 0-for-3 with two whiffs and is 0-for-13 with six strikeouts in the Series. The Rays hit two home runs last night and have three in this Series. They had 16 in the ALCS.

"We're definitely not swinging the bats as well as we can," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "We didn't play well tonight, and we've got to get better - fast."

Of particular concern is Longoria, who played well above his 23 years in the first two rounds of the playoffs but has looked like a scared rookie so far in this Series. Maddon pointed out the two balls he's hit well the past two nights - his flyout to the left-field warning track in the sixth inning of Game 3 and the mammoth foul ball he hit against Ryan Madson in the eighth inning of Game 4 - as the swings on which Longoria needs to focus as he tries to work his way out of his funk before it's too late.

"Longo's got to keep that ball fair, and that could get him going in the right direction," Maddon said. "Both of those guys, he and Pena, are out of their game right now as far as expanding the strike zone."

Which mean they're swinging at pitches they're not likely to hit - the pitches at which the opposing pitchers want them to swing. Longoria stood at his locker for a long time last night and answered questions about his struggles, but he didn't appear to have a ready solution.

"I just think I'm at one of those stages where I'm not locked in," he said. "I'm getting one, maybe two pitches per at-bat to hit, and when you're locked in, you hit those pitches."

He's got a few hours now to figure it out, or else the man the Rays are sending to the mound will feel like he's just about on his own. Scott Kazmir just about matched Hamels in Game 1, and he'll have to do it again if Tampa Bay is going to have a chance to send this baby back down to Florida. Between starts, Kazmir has worked on some mechanical adjustments, including one that addresses his ability to hold runners on. The Rays' coaching staff thought the Phillies got very good jumps against Kazmir in Game 1, and they believed it was because he was tilting his head downward before throwing a pitch (and not doing that before throwing over to first). That and other adjustments will be on display tonight as Kazmir pitches to save his team's season.

"I want the ball, definitely," Kazmir said. "It's going to be a tough one. They've got their best guy out there and it's do or die for us, but I definitely want the ball in this situation."

He's got it, and no margin for error. Tonight, the World Series could come to an end, or Kazmir and the Rays could turn it back the other way.